


Every Day I Have His Heart (The Viva Las Vegas Remix)

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, Jack being Jack, Las Vegas, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Remix, Remix Revival, Resolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-05 05:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15857499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: In another universe, Kent Parson buries his teammate and boyfriend the year he gets drafted. In another universe, Jack and Bitty get married and never talk to Kent Parson again.The universe Kent knows is different.





	Every Day I Have His Heart (The Viva Las Vegas Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sebfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebfish/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the last one home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8444212) by [sebfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebfish/pseuds/sebfish). 



Kent Parson never went to college ( _not yet,_ says a voice in his head, and if it has a Southern accent he ignores it just the same) but he's not stupid, he reads, there's plenty of time to read while you're cooling your ass on a plane or waiting your turn at PT. Yeah, he plays videogames too, but he doesn't _just_ play videogames. Nobody can do that. (Except Swoops, but he's...Swoops.)

Anyway, Kent reads. He listens. He knows shit, shit that's not just fucking hockey. And there's this theory out there that everything's possible, everything's already happened. If you pop over to the universe next door maybe you'll find Kent Parson, Cat Hater. (Kent refuses to believe that universe exists, though.)

So that means that maybe, two universes over, when Parse sits at the blackjack table he gets two aces, and he asks just the right questions that night before the draft and Jack says _I'm scared, Kenny_ and he somehow, _somehow_ says the right things and he gets the right card, and fuck, yeah, twenty-one, in your face, and Jack stays, and Jack's _his._

But maybe one universe over he busts and never thinks to check the bathroom, figures Jack's going to meet him outside, and he's too late, and Jack's cold when Parse finally finds him.

Anyway. That's the theory. That somewhere out there Jack always comes back, and somewhere out there he never had Jack at all, and in another world, this world, Kent Parson spent the second-worst hour of his life watching his old boyfriend kiss his _new_ boyfriend right there on the ice, and trying not to murder everyone in the bar, even Scraps, who was trying so fucking hard to be kind to him he could scream.

That was the hand. An eight and a four, and the dealer holding five. _Hit me,_ Kent Parson had said to the universe, and it sure fucking had.

He hadn't played his hand that badly. He didn't have Jack's number any more--a deliberate choice, years ago--but he'd kept Shitty's number and he sent a text. _I know I don't have any right to ask, but if you could tell Jack--just say hi, I guess. That I'm happy for him. Please._

_No problem, bro._

Bitty _(Eric Richard Bittle,_ the news kept saying, like he was a serial killer) had seemed okay. Probably they were happy. Probably they didn't need any attention from him. So the post-Cup press conference was kind of a disaster, but no one had hired Jack "Hockey Robot" Zimmerman to do graceful press conferences, and Parse figured it would all blow over.

When it hadn’t a week later, he was calling every guy he knew who was in the closet, to see if he could drag anyone else out. Make one statement. Disperse the heat a little. _Aren't you tired of waiting for someone to out you?_

Not all of them were. Parse figured four more out guys in the NHL was a start.

He wasn't ready for the email from Bittle. _We've got three guys from Samwell. Coach tells me about half the Div I teams have somebody ready to come out. Mostly people who were never headed for the NHL, but every person counts, I figure. I know it's scary. Thanks._

Parse weighed a few replies, including _it's not fucking scary,_ but that was a lie, and he’d wanted strength in numbers. Zimms' jersey was already flying off the shelves, all the rest of it be damned. _We're going to show 'em all,_ he sent back instead. _Fuck boys, win Stanley Cups._

 _Championships,_ Bittle said.

They picked a Monday morning, fuck hiding from the headlines, and did it all at once. Samwell. Princeton. Notre Dame. Twenty athletes from ten Division I teams in all. And four from the NHL: Kent Parson of the Aces. Potter and Barayev from the Schooners, who showed off their engagement rings, and they'd probably be getting married soon because there was no fucking way Barayev would dare go home after that. Beaulieu from the Ducks, and Parse guessed that some asshole at Disney was figuring out the best way to cross-brand the shit out of _that._

_Mr. Parson, why come out now?_

_I think it's obvious, don't you? We've waited long enough. We've hoped the league would accept gay players and their response has been so positive_ \--a fucking lie, but a flattering one-- _we decided we should be stepping up as role models for the next generation. I'm so glad to see so many young players from the NCAA here as well. You know--_ He'd paused there, giving the words extra dramatic weight-- _I grew up in a small town, in a real rural area. I knew gay people from TV. I don't know if I can make a difference for another kid in a small town who wants to make it to the NHL, but if I can, I'm going to. My only regret is waiting as long as I did._

_Mr. Parson, there were rumors about your relationship with Jack Zimmerman--_

_Excuse me, Sidney--your momma's doin' all right, isn't she? She sent me the sweetest note last month, she's followed my blog all along, and I'm so glad she's on my side in the vinegar debate--anyway, I'm not sure what the etiquette is at these conferences, but I am sure, when so many people are makin' history comin' out of the closet, you aren't gonna ask about something so _trivial_ as a few wild rumors back in the Q._

_You know, when I start playing in NHL, they tell me about this Q,_ Barayev interrupted, accent thick as a Soviet winter. _My English not so good, I think it like the initials. You know? L, G, B, T, Q? And I ask Punch, what is this Q, a place for the players who kiss boys? He told me better._

_You asked me out._

_I asked you out. Worked, yes?_

"I owe you one," Parse muttered to Bittle when it was all over.

"You think I wanted to hear about that any more than you did?"

For a while after that, everything was a blur of insulting questions and bullshit he couldn't deal with. Pride tape. Fucking Pride tape everywhere. He never liked goddamn rainbows. But there was safety in numbers, even if it wasn't enough safety. He hadn’t been wrong.

He and Bittle were tapped for a shoot for _Sports Illustrated_ ("The new face of Out"), which meant they spent hours sitting and doing nothing. Which meant they talked. First carefully and cautiously, then about hockey, and then Bittle found out that Leo Martin was going to be part of the article, and then he wanted to talk about Leo. He'd skated against him in Juniors, and Parse had known that Bittle had been a figure skater, but he hadn't realized that he'd been an actual _contender._

Kent Parson knew he wasn't the only guy who'd managed to play a bad hand into something good. He hadn't realized that Eric Bittle was too.

(Maybe two universes over they were both figure skaters. Maybe _Jack_ was a--no, Parse refused to believe that world existed, either.)

"I didn't realize--you were that serious, about skating. Figure skating."

"We moved away," Bittle said. "I lost my rink, my coach. I ended up in a no contact league. It was good, I was good, because I didn't have to worry about getting checked. Got harder when I got to Samwell, but you can read about that at ESPN." He sighed. "Still got a pair of figure skates, good ones. Nostalgia, I guess. I can still jump a double axel."

"That's why your footwork's so good."

Bittle flashed him a little, not-quite-modest smile. "Well, coming from top scorer Kent Parson, that's quite a compliment."

They got drinks at the hotel bar, because they were tired and Jack was in Montreal and neither of them felt quite ballsy enough to deal with whoever might want to pick a fight with a pair of just-out hockey players. Three beers in, Bittle got more friendly.

"How'd you end up in hockey, anyway?"

Parse shrugged. "My best friend in, shit, second-third grade, I guess. He had a hockey family. Drove him an hour to practice, all that shit. They asked me if I wanted to see a game and I got hooked, and they offered to drive me. He moved away in sixth grade, but by then I was good enough that they were talking scholarships. And I loved it. My whole life since then. All I've wanted was to play hockey." He took another sip of his beer, watched Bittle's face. "You gonna play after you graduate?"

Bittle shrugged. "Haven't really thought that far ahead, if you wanna know the truth. Gotta graduate first. See how the season goes."

He wasn't NHL material, at least not yet, but he might do all right in one of the farm teams. "What'll you do if you don't play?"

"I've got my blog," he said. "I really just use it for pin money right now, but it's got a lot more attention with all--" His fingers fluttered. "This. Might be able to turn it into something. Major's in Business Administration, because I thought I might want to run a bakery, and I know a lot of them fold because people want to bake and don't think about the business side of it all."

"You'll have to serve more than pie," he said, because he couldn't resist it.

"You don't need to take that tone with me, Kent Parson."

It hung in the air for a second, Bittle's brief manifestation of spine, and then it was gone just as quick. "Lord, I'm tired," he said. "Must be gettin' to me--"

"No," Parse said. "I'm from New York. We don't--we don't dick around with that shit. No blessing your heart or ‘lordy me’ shit. You have a problem, you can say it."

Bittle considered for a second, took a long drink of his own beer. "I ain't just pie," he said, finally. "I ain't just Southern nice. Mama taught me to be polite, doesn't mean I'm a pushover."

"I don't think you are," Parse said, carefully. "I just--I know this isn't. I know you don't want to be friends, okay?"

"You're all right," Bittle said, after too long a pause. "Be easier if you weren't."

"Thanks, I think."

"I wanted to hate you so much,” he said ruefully. “I managed it for a while, too, especially after you crashed the goal during that game. We worry about Snowy, you know. Too many concussions."

"Yeah, none of the rest of us deal with that."

"Funny," Bittle said, dry. 

(In another universe they kept drinking, and Bittle confessed in tears to Jack before he even left Parse's hotel room, and neither of them spoke to him again. Bust.)

They walked together to Parse's room, Parse's arm around Bittle's shoulders to keep him steady. Mostly to keep him steady. Bittle was small but he was still built like a hockey player. Good shoulders. Nice ass. Parse wasn't blind. He wasn't stupid.

How had he ended up _liking_ this perky little kid?

"You take care," Bittle said, when he left, and it felt like he meant it.

 

After that, they texted. Nothing serious. Mostly tossing insults back and forth, trash talking for the coming season. Bittle talked some about hockey and a lot about pies and not at all about the actual college he was allegedly attending, so that was probably going to end bad, but it wasn't Parse's business. None of it was.

Jack was okay. He sent Parse a text or two once in a while, mostly about hockey, sometimes something from film Parse knew wasn't even public.

There was Jack in his nostalgic memories from the Q, and asshole Jack in his angry, frustrated memories from Samwell, but out Jack? Out Jack was okay.

Mostly, though, he talked to Bittle.

Grandma Listovitch was getting older, but she still liked to bake, and she'd heard that Bittle was a wizard at pies, so the next thing Parse knew he was passing messages between them ( _you know I don't do that YouTube stuff, he should get a show on that Cooking Channel_ ) and eating more pastries than anyone should in the off-season. But it made Grandma Listovitch happy, and she'd never been easy to please, so that was something.

Being out was weird. He got thumbs-up from girls with rainbow fauxhawks and uncomfortable silences from the guys he'd always been able to blend in with effortlessly. He found a new sports bar to hang out at in Vegas, this one with as many butch girls with piercings as guys in face paint. He cheered for the Mets and learned that female soccer players were criminally underpaid. 

He kissed some guys in public. 

He gave an interview for _Out_ and confessed his first crush had been on JC Chasez. He didn't tell them about Jack.

(Maybe there was a universe where he talked about Jack. But Parse didn't think there were many.) 

One of the guys at the bar asked him on a date, a real date, and they went out and they went dancing and went back to Parse's stupid magazine-perfect condo and made out on the couch, and he didn't stop the guy (Mark, worked at a casino, wore too much eyeliner) when he went for Parse's zipper, got Parse's dick in his mouth. 

He thought about stopping the guy halfway through, but he didn't. He gave the guy a handjob and it was okay, mostly okay.

It wasn't what he wanted, but he didn't fucking know what he wanted any more. 

_you know how they say the worst sex is still sex? that's a fucking lie_

_Are you okay?_

Parse blinked at the text. Why wouldn't he be? Why--

Why would Bittle care? Why had he been the person Parse had texted in the first place?

Were they...friends? Parse didn't know. Kit rubbed against his ankle and he scratched her chin.

_I'm okay. Just needed to bitch._

_All right. You stay safe._

_I've always been safe,_ he wanted to shoot back. Then he remembered he'd always been in the closet, too, masculine, easy-going, and someone had shoved Eric Bittle into a locker back in high school because they'd looked at the way he walked and heard the way he talked and guessed the truth. Shit, maybe they hadn’t even cared about the truth. _Thanks,_ he said instead.

JC Chasez sent him a signed poster, and he hung it up in the locker room for the guys to have something to chirp him over.

(In another universe, they did more than chirp. In another universe he came home with black eyes and bruises that had nothing to do with the ice. Bust.)

Somehow he ended up in Boston the same weekend Samwell was at Dartmouth, and they got together for drinks again, in a little, pretentious bar up in Hanover that was the kind of place neither of them would be recognized in.

Parse had a type, though he didn't talk about it much. The type was big and broad and usually Russian, which usually resulted in one-sided attraction to whichever defender had last smashed him into the boards. Jack had been an exception, not just because it had been reciprocal.

Parse had never, ever, fucking _ever_ thought he'd be into a tiny blond.

But Eric Bittle was _fun_ when you got him out of Jack-Jack-Jack mode, taking the lard vs. shortening vs. butter debate way too seriously, telling silly jokes that used those wide, wide innocent eyes of his to their full effect. And Parse had to confess to himself that he liked it when Jack's feet of clay showed. "And I had to say 'hun, you do understand my Gramma still complained about water fountains 'til the day she passed from this earth,' and Lord, Parse, I love that man, if I did not survive to the age of twenty-one without knowing a little about 'the United States' complicated history with systemic racism,' there is _no help_ for me." Christ, he even made the air quotes.

"...did she really?" Parse said.

"Honey," Bittle said, suddenly dead serious. "You know why I started playin' hockey? You know why I played for the NCAA when I used to have nightmares about gettin' checked? 'Cause I needed a ticket out, and I would've sold more'n my soul for it if I'd had to." He popped the top of another beer. "Just for five damn minutes out of it, sometimes."

That was about more than racist grandmas. "They--"

"They called me every damn name you could think of, and probably more, Kent Parson. I'm not any kind of grand crusader. I ran off and went to Samwell to save my own skin."

"Right," Parse said, and drained his beer, because he couldn't think of anything to say. There was that time his dad's best friend had talked shit at a party and they'd ended up thowing punches, but it didn't really compare, and he didn't want to get into a dick-measuring contest over who had the ugliest closet.

Bittle sat further back in his chair, and his Under Armour shirt did its job and clung to his chest.

Parse knew what he _did_ want to get into. That idea was even worse.

It wasn't that he felt _sorry_ for Bittle, though some of it was that he felt sorry for every fucking one of them. It was more that he wondered what it would be like to put his face in Bittle's hair and pat his back and tell him it was over, it was different now, even though it wasn't, at least not different enough. It was more that he wanted to drag him into bed and make them both stop thinking about all of that shit for a while.

He wanted Jack there, and not for Jack, for once. He wanted a chaperone.

“I can drive you back to your hotel,” he said. “You’ve probably got curfew before I do.”

“Yeah,” Bittle said, sounding a little reluctant. “And I ought to look in on Chowder, he’s havin’ some kind of trouble with his girlfriend.” 

“I thought when I went to the NHL, I’d be through with that, half the time it’s worse.”

Bittle smiled. “Fair warning?”

“Not everyone’s part of a well-adjusted power couple, Bittle.”

Bittle just shrugged that off, but later, after he’d driven Bittle to his hotel and landed back on the bus back to Boston, he stared up at the ceiling and wondered how happy they really were, and then wondered what he was really wishing for.

 _Good luck tonight,_ Bittle sent him in the morning, already on the bus home, probably.

_Isn’t that rooting for the enemy?_

_Not when you’re playing the Bruins and might knock ‘em down in the rankings._

_I’ll score one for you._

_Just don't rush any more goalies, right?_

_ONE TIME, Bittle._

 

The All-Star game was in Pittsburgh and Bittle came up to visit because the DL was making him stir-crazy, or that was the story. Sunday night they were up too late in Jack’s hotel room, too tired to drink and talking over the game. Bittle was lying on Jack’s bed with an ice pack on his ankle, so quiet Parse thought he was asleep, his head against Jack’s thigh. 

“Nice to be on the same side again,” Parse said, soft, and hoped Jack knew he wasn’t just talking about the game.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I appreciate it. I know I haven’t always been...easy. Either.”

“I just--I didn’t mean to--I missed you.”

“You know I missed you too, Kenny. After the Q--it was too hard to think about you. Think about what we might’ve had. What I fucked up. So I shut down.” 

“I didn’t have to push.”

“I could’ve been honest,” Jack said. “We both fucked up.”

“I’m still sorry about what I said about your dad,” Parse said.

“Sometimes I wonder,” Jack said. “What would’ve happened if I’d called you. After. If we--” He glanced over at Bittle like it was the worst confession he'd ever made, and shit, maybe it was.

Bittle said “Just hockey?” and it sounded like ice, and Parse didn't know what he had for cards any more, just that Jack had busted on a pair of tens. He mumbled some kind of excuse and bailed.

It was raining when he walked out of the hotel, and he liked the rain, missed it when he was in Vegas. He closed his eyes and tipped his chin up into it. Someone called him names from across the street and he flipped them off. He heard the doorman laugh next to him.

"Sorry," he said, a little sheepish, and somehow he got the guy's number and had apology texts from both Jack and Bittle by the time he went back in and got back up to his room.

(Another universe, Jack was waiting in his room when he got back, probably. Maybe that universe was better. Maybe it didn't matter.)

(Maybe in another universe it was Bittle, hurt and angry and wanting to fight and sticking his tongue down Parse's throat the second the door was closed behind them. Maybe that didn't matter either.)

He showered and went to bed, slept a little, dreamt too much. To his mild surprise, Jack asked him to breakfast in the morning, and he went, to this weird diner that served pancakes with disgustingly sweet cherry syrup. He should've been more careful, the off-season, but he'd spent the whole season hungry, starving, and Eric Bittle was watching him, like he was thinking something over, and he shoveled food in his mouth because it was better than wondering what, exactly, it was Bittle was thinking over.

"Last night, Jack said--it wasn't something he shouldn't have said," Bittle said. "Maybe somethin' he shouldn't have said without talkin' about it with me first. But he should've said it. Maybe a long time ago."

"I don't want to fuck anything up between you," Parse said, because it felt important to say that, before the yelling or the crying started. _I'm not going to lie, either,_ he thought. _I gave that shit up when I came out._ "I won’t."

"We know," Jack said. "Just...listen. Okay?"

“Okay.” 

So they talked, and he listened, and Jack was as shitty at talking about his feelings as he always had been, which was reassuring, in a fucked-up way. Bitty wasn't much better. But they seemed--sincere? And they were hot. They liked him. They both created complicated knots in his stomach and straightforward warmth everywhere else.

It wasn't the first threesome he'd been offered. Not even the first with guys. The first one he’d seriously thought about taking up. The first one he’d ever wanted to be something more than a hookup.

"We don't want you to think," Bittle said, and then couldn't finish.

Jack made a stab at it instead. "I used to read the ads on Craigslist sometimes. 'Happy couple seeking third.' You're--you're not a fucking third, Parse. You're not an afterthought. You're--I still miss you. Bits likes you. We both. Like you."

Jesus, Jack was bad at this.

"Shit, Jack. We're in _public."_

"That's on him," Bittle said, darkly.

"I just--no one yells, this way. Not even me."

"I'm not going to...shit. I'm not going to yell."

"I was a lot more worried about me," Jack told his coffee. Bittle squeezed his hand.

"We also thought--" Bittle hesitated. "If you don't want to walk back with us, it'd be a little easier. No trying to avoid each other on the elevator, we can just go check out that little coffee shop across the square when you go. Or the other way around."

Jack finally found some words. "And you--we didn't expect you to have an answer. I want--we want you to think about it. I don't want to just rush into this. This is bigger than that."

It sure as fuck was. "It means more time in the closet," Parse said. "Maybe not the closet we used to be in, but we'll have to be careful." The NHL played positive about its new handful of gay players, but there had already been a few low-key trades, and they sure weren't going to go all-in on a ménage à trois. 

"Don't think we haven't talked about that," Bittle said, soft and quiet. "And I'm sure we'd need to talk more. About everything."

"But if you...if you're interested we want to give it a shot," Jack said. 

They walked back to the hotel together, talking about everything but what they'd talked about in the diner, and then walked past the hotel and out to Point State Park. The fountain was gorgeous, even in sunlight, though not as nice as when Parse had gone running by it the night before.

"Should we make a wish?" Bitty asked.

"I'm not sure that's the kind of fountain this is," Jack said. "You know this was a key strategic point during the French and Indian War, right?"

Bitty groaned.

"Can you not history nerd for five minutes, Jack? Just five fucking minutes?"

"You used to like it," Jack said.

"I don't hate it," Parse conceded.

 

In another universe, Parse got his cards and stayed on eighteen, and that was enough to keep him from drowning. But in this universe, he got a ten on a seven and four, and the house pays three-to-two on blackjack. And sometimes it felt like more than that, felt like beating the house, the stolen hours they had together at the beach house they’d bought under a shell name in Providence or making out at his apartment in Vegas, overlooking the Strip. Sometimes Bittle slid one arm around his waist and Jack came up to pull them both into his arms, and Parse thought about all the mistakes and bad plays and stupid things they’d all said that had somehow, impossibly, gotten them to this.

It was probably different, one universe over. But Kent Parson liked his universe just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from NERVO's [The Other Boys,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N62Edu_WIhs) which is, no doubt, Kent singing from another universe.


End file.
